Gaining mass without consuming mass gainers is fairly possible.
Now I know you have read and heard several things about gaining mass but none of them really answer the real questions that cross your mind. So, I am going to tell you a pretty easy way of loading good amounts of muscle mass.
Body Type and its role in weight gain
Considering that you are reading an article about gaining weight, I assume you are pale and under-weight. So that means you are an Ectomorph.
Ectomorph :
By definition, ectomorph is one of the three most common body types (somatotypes), characterized by a “thin frame” and difficulty to gain muscle mass as well as fat. People that belong to this somatotype are usually skinny, lean and have a high metabolic rate.
This basically means that whenever you do something energy consuming, you burn a lot more calories as compared to other body types so this leads to a calorie deficit. This stunts weight gain. You won’t gain because you waste a good amount of calories in your daily activities and the loss is not reimbursed due to lack of calorie consumption through your diet. Now you might be thinking “I eat a lot”. But the thing is you don't know how much you eat exactly and how much is needed for you to gain in kilograms.
Three major things that affect the rate of gaining:
1. Diet
2. Workout
3. Rest
Diet
First things
first. The most important thing in gaining weight is following through a high calorie
diet. This is the easiest thing to look after for achieving your goals. All you
have to keep in mind is you have to eat a little more calories than the amount of calories
you burn throughout the day. This can be done by keeping a track of your
activities based upon how extreme they are. For example suppose you go to
work for 8 hours and then at night, you go to the gym thinking "Yeah well, Gotta get the workout done". This sums up to you burning almost around
2500 calories per day (including BMR) which is hard to recover. You must intake at
least 500 more calories (Calorie Surplus) than the amount of calories you spend each day. Doing so would help you gain at least 2 pounds every week. As easy as it sounds, it is.
You do not have to eat 12 bananas or stuff 10 eggs in one meal. All you got to do is follow this 3-step formula.
Step 1- Calculate your BMR (Here)
Step 2- Calculate total amounts of calories spent throughout the day, including BMR. (Here)
Step 3- Make a diet plan with a calorie surplus of at least 500.
After finding out the sufficient amount of calories that your body needs everyday to gain mass, you can divide it into 6-7 small meals throughout the day. Just to give you some context I have provided my diet plan (My gaining days Diet Plan)
This is not a concrete diet plan. It’s just an example of how I want you to make your own diet plan
according to your daily routine.
I followed this diet for 3 months with little changes every month. My weight went from 51kg to 65kg in 3 months.
Pre-Breakfast
Coffee with milk and sugar
Boiled potatoes
2 Boiled Egg Whites
Breakfast
Banana milkshake with Oat flour and peanut butter
10 Almonds
2 Halves of Walnut
Lunch
2 Rotis and 1 cup of Dry subjee (matki or moong or something)
Small bowl of Curd
Snacks
4 Bananas
Bowl full of Oats
2 Boiled Egg Whites
Dinner
200g Baked Chicken Breast
2 Boiled Egg Whites
Before Sleep
300 Ml Cow Milk
This diet packs 2800 Calories give or take. It is balanced in Proteins, Carbohydrates and Fats as to gain quality mass.
The Banana Smoothie mentioned in the above diet helped me a lot in my journey and I highly recommend it. It has around a 1000 calories and it is loaded with healthy carbs and Proteins. (It is the same as consuming 3 scoops of Mass Gainer)
How to make:
Ingredients: 500ml cow milk, 1 cup oats, 2 tbsp peanut butter, 2 medium size bananas and cocoa powder.
Process:
1. Grind Raw Oats until it looks like flour.
2. Take 500ml milk in a grinder.
3. Chop the bananas into small pieces and put them in the grinder with milk.
4. Add the oat flour in it.
5. Add 2 tbsp peanut butter to the mixture.
6. Lastly add 2 tbsp cocoa powder for a chocolatey taste and grind well until it looks like a milk shake/ smoothie.
Workout:
As you see in most body building videos “Work hard for Big results” or
"Do tons of different variations". It’s a nice thing to take inspiration from your ideals but one
thing to remember is YOU ARE NOT THEM! Simply because all of the body builders with huge hulk muscles have to inject all kinds of steroids to get that physic (Yes, All of them!).
From now on
the only reason to go to the gym is to get hungrier and eat more.
You are an Ectomorph and your body is not
made to take all that muscle tearing that takes place when you try to copy your
ideals and do some isolations to target a specific muscle. For maximum
weight gain, you have to focus on heavy hitting compound exercises that use more that one muscle at a time. Compound exercises will help you gain strength much faster and the best thing about compound exercises is that you can use your time in gym more efficiently by working multiple muscle groups at once. A good workout must start with a little body weight exercises followed by 7 to 8 sets of heavy compound exercises which is later followed by one or two isolation exercises. Below are
examples of workout combinations that I practice for steady muscle gains.
Workout 1:
1. Barbell squat (3 sets of 10 reps)
2. Barbell Bench Press (3 sets of 10 reps)
3. Bent Over Barbell Row (3 sets of 10 reps)
4. Pull-ups (2 sets of 8 reps)
5. Side Lateral Raise (2 sets of eight reps)
6. Full Crunches/ Sit-ups (2 sets of 15 reps)
Workout 2:
1. Front Barbell Squats (3 sets of 10 reps)
2. Seated Barbell Military Press (3 sets of 10 reps)
3. Barbell Dead lift (3 sets of 10 reps)
4. Barbell Bicep Curl (2 sets of 8 reps)
5. Seated Triceps Extension/press (2 sets of 8 reps)
6. Lying leg raises (2 sets of 15 reps)
These are
just some nice combinations which you yourself can make up by searching for
various compound and isolation movements and then combining them in a
proportion.
Remember, do not spend 2-3 hours in gym working out and sweating. This may cause over training. Over training is one of the main reasons behind no gains. Training for more than an hour will release cortisol in your blood stream. Cortisol is a stress hormone and it stunts the production of anabolic hormones like Testosterone and Growth Hormone. Also, limit your cardio sessions to once or twice a week.
Rest:
The Muscle tissue is broken down in your workout session. To make repairs you have to consume sufficient calories. The repairing process is at its best when your body is at rest. It is mandatory to get at least 7-8 hours of flat sleep (No matter how bad you want to watch that one episode). If you do not rest properly, your body wont recover from the workout and you might experience fatigue. If you're not able to sleep straight for 8 hours for some reason, I suggest you take power naps whenever possible to make up for the lack of sleep.
So there you go my body builders. I hope this article helps you in the process. You can always contact me for any help on therealfitindian@gmail.com
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